Susan Olmstead Wang

A trio of birth stories. During this week of autumn, our family has three birthdays, mine and those of our two sons.

I call it Birthday Week but it’s actually a little longer than 7 days due to one overdue baby and one emergency C-birth. “Week” speaks to my sense of concentrated blessings, a set of lovely children. Although the kids are 30 months apart, in this week they all have odd or even age numbers: for example 3, 5, and 7 or like this year, they are 40, 42, and 44.

First, I was the baby being born and then I was the mother birthing sons.

1950: I was born in late October at 10 on a Friday night at St Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson, NJ.

I am so grateful for my mom who was a warm, fun-loving person with good priorities for our family, herself, and me. My mom and Grandma Edgerton, who had come from Vermont to help, were in the grocery store that afternoon with my two-year-old brother, Steve. When Mom realized it was time to get to the hospital, they scrambled to pay, get home, and call my dad in from work to take her to the hospital.

Of course, I don’t remember the birth but likely my mother didn’t either. Her experience of birth was very controlled by the contemporary medical “wisdom” instilled by male doctors in a hierarchical system post-World War 2. After their complex experiences in World War 2, young people were in a hurry to get “back to normal” and to be modern. Doctors then convinced women that “twilight sleep” births were the enlightened way to go. Why put a woman through the pain of labor when modern medicine could take over, subtract her from the equation, or make her forget the pain?

I never heard on what day Mom was allowed to hold me – there was certainly no immediate bonding skin to skin in the delivery room. She was allowed to dangle her feet off the side of her bed on the second or third day, but not to get up or move around on her own. My mom stayed in the hospital a relatively long time – between 8 and 14 days. Dad took us home in the family car (not every middle-class family had one) with Mom in the front seat holding me wrapped in a blanket against Mid-Atlantic November. No baby car seat, no seatbelts, and no auto safety glass. Apparently, my 2-year-old brother was very curious and climbed over the seat from back to front to see me, the baby. Mom and Grandma passed me back and forth between front and back seats — to keep ahead of Steve or to get us both conveniently in the back. Fortunately, it was only about 10 minutes home to Addison Place, Clifton, New Jersey.

My mom breastfed briefly but she was pressured by her obstetrician and my pediatrician to use infant formula because it was more “modern and convenient.” That attitude persisted for a long time putting all kinds of pressure on mothers who were trying to do their best but who were exhausted from conflicting advice. 

We baby boomers (76 million of us born between 1946 and 1964) had better stuff than our parents had but not compared to the huge array of baby things our grandchildren use today. We were diapered in white cotton cloth diapers held together with big headed pins that could stick and hurt the baby or the caregiver. The labor to clean diapers was still intensive although some lucky families had wringer washers (sometimes kept out on the back porch with the ‘ice box’ or refrigerator). Metal diaper pails, manufactured with white enamel coatings to look like sterile hospital items, held the wet or dirty diapers until someone could wash them– it did not take long for an ammonia smell or worse to come from those pails. Babies were put down to sleep on their tummies – sadly, it took doctors too long to figure out about crib death.

My mom stayed home with us three kids in suburban Long Island, a wonderful place for us “swarms” of children to grow up with parks, good neighbors, and a “village” feel.

1978: Philip was born in early November at 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night at Barberton Citizens’ Hospital near Akron, Ohio.

The pregnancy was challenged by public health and environmental issues. There was public health challenge with an outbreak of German Measles at the Taipei American School where I was an English teacher.  I had missed getting the Rubella immunization developed after I had left home for college. I developed a rash on my abdomen – two dermatologists said, “Not Rubella” but two obstetricians said, “Better abort just in case it is.” We were devastated. Abortion was legal and rather common in Taiwan in 1978, but I wasn’t having it.  Mike was a conscript in the Chinese army but was able to get out for a day to help me handle this emergency. We did blood titers, found no immune response, and went on with the pregnancy HOPING that the baby would be OK.  In fact, we did not know for sure that he was normal and perfect until the evening he was born. Thank God.

In terms of environmental danger, the school flooded twice while I was teaching there. Taipei sits in a basin at the bottom of a circle of mountains so when there were extremely heavy typhoon rains, all kinds of filthy water rushed to the lowest geographic point, the TAS “toilet bowl.” Our second-floor apartment was OK, but my first-floor classroom filled to within a foot of the ceiling with fine black silty grit and mud. The toxic stuff got into every crack and cranny.  Smelled putrid. It was a danger to me and baby – I tried to be careful when helping to clean up.

Mike, me, and “baby-on-board” traveled out of Taiwan in June 1978 and went to central Ohio for Mike’s advanced medical training. By November 8, I was past due by 10 days, a lot by more modern standards. But ultrasound was not available yet and the obstetrician did not induce or suggest C birth. I had slow labor for 12 hours from midnight to about 1 p.m. the next day when she suggested we speed up the process with Pitocin.  I phoned Mike, who was on call in the same hospital, to get his input. I had NO idea the Pit drip was going to come up a main vein of my right arm like a red-hot poker or that intense uterine contractions would begin suddenly, immediately.  Frightening for me . . . what was poor “Baby” experiencing?

Over the next 6 hours I was amazed that my body, formerly my friend, could produce such intense pain! Saddle block, forceps — finally, our sweet baby boy was born.  He was large (almost 9 pounds) and a little wrinkled from being in utero a LONG time. We were so grateful that he was a perfect and beautiful baby.

The nursing staff, not the most up-to-date, kept him in the nursery right after birth and all the first night, and fed him “sugar water”! In spite of them, I breastfed him successfully until the pediatrician (also out-of-date) suggested that breast feeding was too much trouble and that baby would gain better with formula. I succumbed to pressure and put Philip on formula but it turned out that he was allergic to cow-milk based formulas and developed eczema. Much better to have stayed with mother’s milk, but too late! Soymilk based formula was the third pathway.   

As for equipment, I was one of the first to use a baby car safety seat. He had a “baby tender” scooter that worked well on the linoleum floor of the kitchen, giving me free hands for a few moments now and then. “Snuggly” front packs were new, as were baby backpacks. We had the most wonderful sturdy baby buggy with full suspension that we used for all the kids over 6 years. We still used cloth diapers, but our house had a washer and dryer, so doing laundry wasn’t hard.  

1983: Andrew was, like his older brother, born in early November at 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night. Because we were living in Nashville for Mike to train in GI, Andrew was born at Vanderbilt University hospital.

I had been teaching English at The International English Institute on Music Row in Nashville. I taught up to Halloween Weekend, then did a Halloween party combined with an early birthday party for Philip thinking I would be in the hospital soon after his 5^th birthday to have this third baby.   

Because my tummy was again quite big (twins?), the doctor ordered an ultrasound scan, then new and very expensive.  The scan showed one big baby in full footling breach position. Even though I was an experienced mother, I was not feeling lucky about delivering him normally because it had been a bad year of illnesses and deaths in my family. The baby did not turn on his own and so, a C-birth was scheduled for Nov 9. But, on the first day of November, my “baby tummy” started to rumble and I realized I had to move fast. I was downtown with 2-year-old Laura shopping with some baby shower gift cards. I went to the OB who said, “TODAY! – Do you choose 3 p.m. or 6 p.m.?” I had to get Laura all the way home to Bellevue, then call Mike from home to take me back to the hospital. We had not made a plan for an early and emergency C-Birth. Admitted about 4:30, I got the 6 p.m. slot.      

I thought the anesthesia took forever – needles into my arms, OB-GYN residents standing around WAITING for drug to take (for me to perform? I was anxious), clock ticking, the OR ready and . . . I was not. Once I was wheeled in, things went fast – I could not see my body below the curtain at my chin. But Mike was to my right and he did not pass out on the floor from the sight of all the blood and gore as some poor, untrained husbands do.  

I had no pain, but the first big surgical cut went through many layers of skin and muscle and let loose a flood of amniotic sac fluid and blood that swooshed under me and soaked my whole back and the operating table. I was not prepared for the vigorous tugging and pulling in my abdomen to get the baby, then the placenta, out fast. It was very disconcerting to be totally helpless and exposed.   

Mike was there – he had the baby in his arms – baby didn’t cry a lot, only whimpered, looked up at light, the OR lights, for the first time. Mike raised him to his lips and kissed him. While I was still strapped down to the operating table, Mike brought baby Andrew to the left side of my face and let me kiss him.  I said, “Hi, sweetheart, it’s mama.”

Staff took him to clean him up and do the stats.  Good APGARS in spite of birth stress, being large (8 pounds 3 ounces), and arriving 7 days early.

The next 30 minutes were the worst – I was all stitched up and waiting for my vitals to be normal so they could give me regular pain meds and put me in a room. The anesthesia was wearing off and the pain from huge incisions throbbed and wrenched. My pain was so bad that I wanted to tear my face off.

Finally, as they wheeled me towards a room, we passed the newborn nursery. They encouraged me to turn to see my baby so I exerted myself to rise up. I saw big, beautiful Andrew in a nurse’s arms, all clean and cozy, going down to sleep in a clear plastic bassinet.  Grateful. I slumped back.

Mike and his mom brought the two older kids to the hospital to meet Andrew. Laura was so excited to be helped to hold Andrew. My Sunday School lady friends brought me a baby shower since the early emergency delivery had changed our original plan. We brought baby Andrew home from the hospital on Philip’s 5th birthday – Philip was VERY happy with the gift of a baby brother.  

The special nature of this week persists – with respect to Laura whose birthday is in May and to all the lovely little people who have come into our lives since (February, April, June, and late November grandsons). We are very, very grateful.